As the member for St. Catharines knows, this is an issue with respect to meal expense deductions that truckers across Canada had raised, and I sure heard about it from lots of members of our Conservative caucus here. There was a pretty strong feeling among truckers that they were not getting the same tax break as other people do sometimes in their meal expense deductions. So we addressed that. It should help also with the shortage of truck drivers. There is quite a significant shortage of truck drivers in Canada, and that has an economic consequence for our economy, since so many of the goods that are moved across the country move with our truckers, including our trade with the United States to the south.
According to a study conducted by the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council, the trucking industry currently needs some 38,000 new drivers annually. So this tax measure to increase to 80% from 50% the share of meal expenses that long-haul truck drivers can deduct for tax purposes should help make that job more lucrative and more attractive to more people. We need more people getting into the trucking business. It applies to both truck drivers who are employees and long-haul truck drivers who are self-employed.